by Parnell Hall
“You’re just being silly.”
“The idea is silly. Someone puts a cryptic clue in a KenKen puzzle and expects anyone to figure it out.”
“And yet you found the gun.”
“There was a crossword puzzle. Find me a crossword puzzle.”
“As a matter of fact…”
Cora’s heart sank. Was the chief really going to throw a crossword puzzle in her lap, expect her to solve it on the spot? How was she going to tap-dance her way out of that?
“As a matter of fact what?” Cora said irritably.
“I was just going to ask you if perhaps there had been a crossword puzzle from some other source.”
Cora’s heart fluttered and she sucked in her breath. Just the type of guilty reaction a cop would be apt to notice. Why was he asking her that?
“You’re asking if someone sent me a crossword puzzle that would explain what this KenKen means?”
“I was not asking specifically if anyone sent it to you. I was asking if you got one from any other source. Like filched it from the crime scene before the cops could get a look.”
“I wasn’t at the crime scene.”
“Yes, you were. I saw you there.”
“That was after you’d been there and searched it. You think I stole something from the crime scene you missed?”
“I don’t know what you’re capable of these days. Your ex-husband comes to town and you start acting different. I don’t know what you’re capable of.”
“I’m not capable of finding something that isn’t there.”
“Not when I saw you. But had you been there earlier, before the cops? In time to spirit the evidence away?”
“Would that be a felony?”
“It certainly would.”
“Then I couldn’t possibly have done it. I’m a law-abiding citizen.”
“If that turns out to be the case…”
“It won’t. Because I didn’t do it. This KenKen is as meaningless to me as it is to you. And I have no idea, whatsoever, of anything that might shed any light on it. Including, but not limited to, anything I might have found, seen, or heard of that could possibly relate to this jumble of numbers at all.”
“You’re really worked up, you know.”
“Oh, right,” Cora said. “Pester and goad me until I react and then tell me I’m really worked up.”
Harper nodded sympathetically. “I can make allowances. I understand how you feel. I’m sorry I arrested your man.”
Cora’s face reddened. Her eyes blazed.
“He’s not my man!”
Chapter
45
“Sherry. Thank goodness you’re home.”
“Of course I’m home. You’ve got the car.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“Pay phone at the Country Kitchen.”
“You gotta get a cell phone, Cora.”
“Yeah, yeah. Look. You gotta do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Run down to the mailbox.”
“Why?”
“See if anyone sent us a puzzle.”
“What makes you think they would?”
“There was a puzzle when the banker got killed.”
“That led us to your license plate. I thought you weren’t admitting that.”
“I’m not.”
“You think there’s a puzzle this time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Implicating you?”
“Or Melvin.”
“You’re worried about Melvin.”
“Give it a rest, Sherry.”
“That’s so cute.”
Cora started a string of invectives, but Sherry had put down the phone. The screen door slammed as she went out.
Sherry was back minutes later. “Nothing there.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good? Couldn’t you use a hint just now?”
“A hint would be fine. A crossword puzzle would be embarrassing. Since I just swore up and down to Chief Harper there wasn’t one.”
“Oh, here’s Aaron. Hey, honey, in the kitchen! Maybe he’s got something.”
“If he did, he wouldn’t be home.”
“Hi, honey,” Aaron said. “Is that Cora?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Lemme talk to her.” Aaron’s voice came over the phone. “Cora, I got something for you.”
“What?”
“The boyfriend. He went ballistic when he heard Randolph asked her out.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a reporter. That’s my job.”
“How come you didn’t get it before?”
“The boyfriend wasn’t important before. The fact Randolph asked Lilly Clemson out wasn’t even news until Rick Reed started touting it. The word now is the boyfriend had a fight with the banker.”
“Physical or verbal?”
“Word is just verbal, but plenty heated.”
“I see.”
“I thought you’d be more pleased.”
“Why?”
“It lets Melvin off the hook.”
“I’m not in this to get Melvin off. I’m in this to find out what actually happened.”
“Right,” Aaron said.
He didn’t sound convinced.
Chapter
46
“Becky! You gotta help me!”
Becky Baldwin looked up from her desk. “Christ, I wish you had a cell phone.”
“I’m glad I don’t. My life is complicated enough without it.”
“Yes. But then your lawyer can’t reach you. I need Chief Harper to butt out of my business. He was in here reading me the riot act. You snuck into the holding cell and interviewed his prisoner.”
“I wasn’t in the holding cell.”
“Oh. Touchy. He didn’t say it was a conjugal visit. He said you had a talk.”
“Why was he telling you?”
“I’m a licensed attorney. I have to cooperate with the law.”
“You’re a licensed attorney and you have to respect the confidence of your client.”
“Thank you. I needed that refresher course in legal ethics. The problem is, Harper thinks you’re holding out on him.”
“I am holding out on him.”
“What?”
Cora grimaced. “You’re gonna beat me up, but there was no reason to tell you. Now there is. Harper thinks maybe I found and suppressed a crossword puzzle that would tie in the KenKen found with Lilly Clemson’s body. I didn’t, but I did in Roger Randolph’s murder.”
“What?”
Cora told Becky about finding the crossword puzzle and having it yield her own license plate number.
“You held out on me?” Becky said.
“Well, it hardly seemed relevant to an alimony hearing.”
“Did it seem relevant to the murder?”
“I wasn’t charged with the murder.”
“Even so.”
“Even so? I don’t believe that’s a valid legal argument. Sway many judges with the phrase even so?”
“The thing is, that only makes it worse.”
“What?”
“Your position.”
“I don’t have a position. I didn’t do it. I may be involved in manipulating the location of the murder weapon, but that’s hardly the same thing. And completely unrelated.”
“That must be one of the most extraordinary statements between a client and her attorney. Let me be sure I understand you correctly. Your suppressing of and tampering with evidence in a murder is entirely coincidental and not to be inferred.”
“Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I noticed. So why were you so eager to get in touch with me? Just to bawl me out?”
Becky exhaled, grimaced. “We have a problem. It was a problem before you told me about Chief Harper, and it’s a bigger problem now.”
“What are you talking about? You said you saw Chief Harper.”
“Yeah. But he didn’t tell me what you said.”
“What I said about what?”
“About denying there was a crossword puzzle.”
“So? That’s not your fault. You didn’t know he asked me. You didn’t know I told him. You’re not responsible for any misleading statement you may have made while speaking in ignorance of the facts.”
“Right. That would be a sin of commission. As opposed to a sin of omission.”
“It’s not a sin if you didn’t know it. And why the hell are we talking sins? This is not a religious matter, it’s a legal matter. You did not legally withhold anything by failing to mention what you didn’t know.” Cora shook her head in exasperation. “It’s a sad reflection on the legal profession when you have to educate your own lawyer.”
“I didn’t know he was going to ask you that specific question. It puts me in a hell of a position.”
“Why?”
Becky opened her desk drawer, took out a folded document, passed it over.
Cora opened it up.
It was a crossword puzzle.
ACROSS
1 Money owed
5 Large-scale
9 Serious accident
14 Vicinity
15 Facial tissue additive
16 “Whole ___ Shakin’ Goin’ On”
17 Message, part 1
19 Made waves?
20 WJM-TV anchor
21 Find breathtaking?
22 See 25-Across
23 Not many
24 Most adoring
25 With 22-Across, who to blame
28 Prepare to paint
30 Vishnu incarnation
31 Message, part 2
36 Where Farsi is spoken
37 “Reuben, Reuben” star
38 Chilled, as tea
39 Message, part 3
41 Baggage checker?
42 Metallic mixture
43 Those in litigation
44 Inverness instrument
48 A little pointer?
49 Sans injury
50 Thailand, once
52 “Yo!”
55 Get up
56 Message, part 4
58 Thin, as sound
59 Oodles
60 Vaccine type
61 Belgian violinist/composer
62 Auberjonois of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
63 In the pink
DOWN
1 Bonkers
2 Eastern lake, canal, or city
3 Relax, as rules
4 Smidge
5 Colorful squawker
6 Shakespeare title starter
7 Thick fog, in slang
8 “Get it?”
9 “Up in the Air” star George
10 Author Dahl
11 Based on ___ story
12 Petunia propper-uppers
13 Lacked, briefly
18 Improved, as wine
22 Red, to a red baiter
23 Old French coin
24 Foul-mouthed
25 Barbershop request
26 ___-kiri
27 “___ my wit’s end!”
28 Magazine about celebs
29 Reached in amount
31 Make a bust?
32 Arrange a date for
33 Subdivision unit
34 Eye drop
35 Ben & Jerry’s competitor
40 Clairol colorer
43 Water collector
44 Buxom
45 Those opposed
46 Accra’s land
47 Producing groans, maybe
48 Cut’s partner
50 Mall event
51 Pressing need
52 Also-ran of fable
53 And more, for short
54 Cheerleader’s bit
56 Jam ingredient?
57 Despondent
Chapter
47
Cora let go of the puzzle as if it were hot. The paper fluttered down, landed on Becky’s desk.
“What the hell is that?” Cora demanded.
“It’s a crossword puzzle.”
“I can see that. Why do you have it, and why are you giving it to me?”
“It was shoved under my door. I had it when I talked to Chief Harper. At the time, I had no idea he’d asked you if you’d seen such a document and that you’d denied it existed. That makes you technically innocent of lying to the police on that particular subject, and makes me technically innocent of compounding a felony and conspiring to conceal a crime. Because I wasn’t asked the question directly and you weren’t aware of the puzzle’s existence when you spoke to the police. We are both technically innocent. And if you think that is going to get us off the hook when it turns out you were withholding a similar crossword puzzle with regard to the other murder, we’re screwed six ways from Sunday.”
“Yes and no.”
“Yes and no? I’ve already granted all our technical defenses. Aside from that, how does this strike you as a yes-and-no situation?”
“The puzzle only becomes a problem if the police know about it.”
“Oh, my God,” Becky said. “Now we both know about the puzzle’s existence. We both know it’s been demanded by Chief Harper. And now you’re suggesting we suppress it while in full knowledge of the facts.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Cora.” Becky shook her head ruefully. “The only way out of this mess is for me to contact Chief Harper immediately. Tell him that you’ve apprised me of the fact he’s looking for a crossword puzzle to go with the KenKen that was found at the scene of the crime. That I had previously received a crossword puzzle slipped under my door. That I had no idea what it was until I heard from you. That the minute I did I immediately contacted him and turned it over.”
“Works for me,” Cora said.
Becky frowned, looked at her. “What do you mean, it works for you? Then the chief has the evidence and we don’t have any idea what it is.”
“Well, I assume he’ll give us a copy to play with.”
“You think so? After we held out on him?”
“We didn’t hold out on him. At least, not this.”
“Yeah. You know it and I know it. You think the chief is going to believe it? We’ll be lucky if he lets us see it at all.”
“He’s going to want it solved.”
“Yeah, but not by you. Hasn’t Harvey Beerbaum been helping him out with puzzles lately?”
“Only with things that don’t matter. Harvey can solve the puzzles just fine, but he can’t figure out what they mean.”
“That’s all well and good. But I’m not giving it to Chief Harper without you solving it first.”
“He’s not going to like that.”
“He’s going to love it. We’re giving him the puzzle and the solution without him having to ask.”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“You said so yourself. You held out on the chief. I held out on the chief. But we didn’t know it. We got together and realized we were doing it. So what did we do? Give him the puzzle? No, we solved it to make sure there wasn’t anything incriminating in it.”
“That’s not what we’re doing.”
“That’s what it will look like.”
“Of course it will look like that. Because that’s exactly what we’re doing. Don’t you want to know what the puzzle says?”
“How could it possibly help?”
“I don’t know, because I don’t know what the puzzle says. But I sure as hell intend to. So, you want me to act as your lawyer, you tell me what the damn thing says.”
Cora heaved a deep sigh. “Aw, hell.” She picked up the phone, punched in the number. “Sherry? Aaron still there?… No, I don’t want to talk to him. I’m at Becky Baldwin’s office. Get him off his duff and get him to drive you down here just as fast as he can.”
Chapter
48
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Becky couldn’t believe it. “You can’t do crossword puzzles?”
“Number puzzles I can do just fine. Crossword puzzles drive me nuts. When Sherry and Aaron were on their honeymoon, I had Harvey Beerbaum solve the puzzles for me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I had to tell him. He wasn’t shocked. He said a lot of constructors can’t solve puzzles.”
“And that’s you?”
“I can’t solve worth a damn.”
“Will you guys shut up?” Sherry said. “I’m working here.”
“Oh, look at that,” Cora said. “She gets to flaunt her expertise, and suddenly she’s a diva.”
“You want me to solve this or not?”
“Well, I’d like to know if it’s about me.”
“Why would it be about you?” Becky said.
“It wouldn’t,” Cora said. She hoped it was true.
“Maybe it is about you,” Sherry said. “24 Down is ‘Foul-mouthed.’ ”
“Is the answer ‘Cora’?” Becky said.
“No, but it’s six letters starting with F. Could be ‘Felton.’ ”
“If you fudge the answer to spell Felton, I am so going to get you,” Cora said.
“Like I’d do that.”
“I don’t know what you’d do,” Cora said. “You’ve been acting so erratic lately.”
“What do you mean, lately?” Becky said.
“Ask Mom and Pop.”
“Mom and Pop? I knew you were building an addition, but—”
“Done!” Sherry said.
“What is it?” Cora said.
“See for yourself.”
Cora grabbed the puzzle, read: “ ‘Find a clue. Seal my fate. Match up the car’s plate.’ ” She snorted. “Yesterday’s news. We matched up the car’s plate. It points to me.”
“Not necessarily. You’ve got another KenKen.”
“Right. So what am I supposed to do? Look at the second row across?”
“No.” Sherry took the puzzle back. She pointed. “25 Across. ‘With 22-Across, who to blame.’ The answer to 25 Across is ‘Third.’ The answer to 22 Across is ‘Column.’ I assume that’s the third vertical row.”
“Great,” Cora said. She snatched up the KenKen. “What have we got? Let’s see. ‘2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1.’ ”
“If it’s like the other one,” Aaron said, “the first three numbers stand for letters.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care what they are, 5, 6, 1 is not my license number.”
